


From Ashes

by BnB (The_Third_Time)



Series: Deimos [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Omega Verse, Omegaverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 19:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20711048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Third_Time/pseuds/BnB
Summary: Believing she had lost her mate and her daughter, Myrrine rebuilds her and her son’s lives on Kephallonia.





	From Ashes

Myrrine and Nikolaos had decided, the night prior, to leave Sparta, to flee. Damn the pythia and her prophecies, bloodlines and lineage, even the gods themselves. Damn them all. Taygetos would not have her children.

Where they go, it didn’t matter, as long as they were together, a family. Home was her children, and Nikolaos.

Nikolaos. Her mate, the alpha she chose, the one she loved. He would be here soon with Kassandra. She and Alexios just had to wait. She hummed a lullaby as they did, a song she learned from her father, a piece of Sparta she would take with her. It soothed Alexios as much as it did her.

Then the sun set, and still they were alone in the Valley of the Two Kings. No Nikolaos. No Kassandra.

Myrrine began to worry. They were running out of time. She and Nikolaos didn’t discuss this, didn’t even consider it. She would not lose Kassandra. Nikolaos was cunning as well as strong. He would find a way to protect their little girl, to save her. He had to.

It was dark now, and Alexios had become restless, had started to cry. Myrrine couldn’t comfort him any more than she could herself.

She knew. It was too late. There was nothing, no one to wait for. Not anymore.

* * *

Getting out of Lakonia had been easy. Myrrine knew Sparta, its lands and its people. Going from there, however, was another matter. Mercenaries and merchants alike turned her away from their ships. It was no place for an omega, they had told her, certainly not one with an infant.

“Certainly not one who is also Spartan.” It was a pirate who had said that. A towering alpha, big as she was bold, Xenia would give even Spartan alphas pause.

Myrrine, though, held her chin high, and she met the pirate alpha’s eyes, unflinching.

“The Greek world, and perhaps beyond, know how jealously Sparta keeps its omegas.” Xenia looked away then, briefly, to her neck. “I see a mate mark, but no mate. Where is your alpha? Did your newborn weep when he was bathed in wine?”

“My child--” Myrrine stopped, almost said ‘children’ and barely contained the sob that followed it, barely fought off the sting of tears in her eyes. “My child,” she said again, growled the words this time as she held Alexios to her breast, “is strong. This will be a loss that will weaken Sparta. They will see that someday, I promise you.”

Xenia looked at her, quiet for so long that Myrrine feared that the alpha had heard her voice break, or seen her eyes glisten. “And where is it you want to go?” came the question, spoken with a softness that she didn’t expect from a pirate.

“Away,” she breathed, she pleaded.

* * *

Xenia took them to Kephallonia, small, unremarkable, forgettable Kephallonia.

There Myrrine met Markos, a beta who was more weasel than man. He saw her, a runaway omega with an infant, with nothing and no one else, and still he tried to swindle her.

She broke his nose. Strangely, it made him a more gracious host, and he invited her to his home.

“You are different,” Markos told her, after she had helped set his nose back in place, “and different leads to unique opportunities, worthwhile, profitable opportunities that I would be happy to pursue for us.”

“‘Us’?”

“I think we’d make a great team, you and I.”

Myrrine looked at Alexios, smiled when he grasped her fingers with his tiny hands. She nodded at Markos, but she didn’t take her eyes off her son.

“Wonderful! And what is my new business partner’s name?”

Alexios smiled widely up at her, no different from the way Kassandra used to when she was his age. Myrrine closed her eyes, fought the tears. “Phoenix,” she said to Markos. “My name is Phoenix.”

* * *

The first night in Markos’ house, Myrrine couldn’t sleep. Not the night after, or the one after that. When she did sleep, finally, out of exhaustion, it was wrought with nightmares, of her mate and her daughter at the pit of Taygetos, of the rain eating at their flesh until she couldn’t tell their bones from the mound of it beneath them.

Markos woke her up then. Alexios was crying, had been for some time. He didn’t stop until she held him for the rest of the night, and he didn’t sleep until she sang him that lullaby.

When the sun rose, she whispered to him, “It’s just us now, Alexios.”

* * *

Kephallonia had no discipline and no sense of honor, ruled by thieves and cowards. What few riches it had, its lumber, squandered for the personal gain of its selfish, self-proclaimed leaders while its people wasted away in poverty.

Myrrine wouldn’t have it. She couldn’t turn Kephallonia into the Sparta she had grown up in, but for Alexios, she would make it better, she would make it more.

* * *

Changing Kephallonia began slowly. Markos was an ambitious man, which helped, but he was also poor, lost what little drachmae he had to his ridiculous schemes.

Myrrine started with the people, those with little or no power or privilege. She talked to them, befriended them.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said about their lives and their suffering. “I’ll show you.”

When the bandits came to make threats and demands, Myrrine sent them running back, either with her words or her fists. This she did until it was their leaders who showed. They were louder, sometimes bigger, but they were weak, as any bandit, vultures that scattered at any sign of life.

Then, at last, Kephallonia was free.

* * *

Over the years, Kephallonia prospered and thrived, and soon, it called for a leader, one chosen by the people.

“You will be archon, Markos,” Myrrine told the man.

“Me?” he blurted, for once without confidence, and with very few words. “Why me?”

“We’ll still be partners, you and I,” she assured him. “A title wouldn’t suit me, the formalities that come with it. Pissing contests, the lot, and I would rather spend time with Alexios. I’m already away from him too much as it is.”

‘I don’t want to be seen,’ was what she didn’t say.

She knew: the Cult was waiting, searching even now. Long she had suspected that they were behind the prophecy that took her mate and her daughter.

She dared not risk being found, not while Alexios was still a child.

When the time came, however, she would hunt them down, and she would kill them.

* * *

Alexios was growing up, and fast.

His first word had been ‘mater’. It was all he ever said for weeks to come. It warmed Myrrine’s heart and broke it all the same. ‘Mater’ had been Kassandra’s first word as well, despite being seldomly held and never cuddled. Such was how Spartan alphas were raised, how they were made.

Alexios didn’t know he was Spartan. He didn’t know he had a sister. She spared him the pain.

What he did know was that he didn’t have a father. It was a question to him, ‘pater’, one Myrrine had no answer to. Often, he sought out Markos.

“I’m not your pater, Alexios,” Markos would say when approached, often on the other side of walls that Myrrine could easily hear through. Alexios had yet to understand the heightened senses of alphas and omegas. Myrrine always tried not to listen, and she always failed.

“You can be,” Alexios said this time. The older he got, the more he had to say. “You already are, sort of. You live with us. You get along with Mater. What else is there? Why can’t I call you Pater?”

“Well, first of all, you and your mother live with me.”

“No, we don’t. We have this nice house because of Mater. And she should be the archon, not you.”

Markos laughed. “A political opinion already! What a smart boy you’re turning out to be, Alexios!” He laughed again, forced now, nervous. “You don’t really want me to be your pater, do you, Alexios?”

Alexios was quiet then, took a moment to answer. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I just wish I had one.”

Myrrine sighed, her palm now pressed to her neck, where her mate mark was. It hurt, a pain that could never be soothed.

* * *

When Alexios turned seven, Myrrine began to teach him to hunt and to fight. Her son was Spartan, after all.

* * *

“You know, Phoenix, I never did thank you. At least, not properly.”

Myrrine laughed. “Feeling sentimental, Markos?” she teased. “That explains the wine. Pramnian, is it? All the way from Lesbos. I thought you were never letting this off the shelf.”

“Of course I brought our best wine, Phoenix! We’re celebrating!”

“Celebrating what, exactly? Have you declared a holiday, now?”

“You wound me, my friend,” Markos said, though he kept grinning. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what today is.”

“Should I?”

“Yes! It was ten years ago today that you broke my nose.”

Myrrine scoffed into her wine. “You remember it? The very day?”

“Don’t you?” Markos asked back. “Our lives changed that day, Phoenix. I didn’t have a single drachma to my name. I had debts to pay off debts! And you, you, Phoenix, no mate, a baby to raise, in Kephallonia of all places.”

Myrrine sipped her wine. The taste was pleasant, unlike the memories Markos brought up. Not that he was aware. He never pried, never even asked. Kephallonia thought she was a runaway slave. It explained her bravery, but also her refusal to talk about her past.

“Look at us now, Phoenix. Look at Kephallonia. Lesbos sends us wine, Athens wants our lumber, and we have the drachmae to rebuild Odysseus’ palace.”

Myrrine glanced out the window, saw Ithaka in the distance. Years from now, the palace would be seen clearly from here.

She raised her drink. “To us, then, Markos,” she said, did so with a smile.

“To us, my friend.”

* * *

“Eat up, Alexios. You’ve a long day of training ahead.”

Alexios, instead of eating more, actually stopped. “Can I do it tomorrow, Mater? I want to go swimming with my friends.” He smiled at her, his eyes hopeful and expectant.

Myrrine forced a smile, and then a laugh. “Of course, my boy.” She placed a kiss on his head, the affection genuine, as was the purr that followed it. “But I don’t want you making a habit of shirking your training, understand? Strong alphas aren’t made that way.”

“I’m already strong, Mater! I’m stronger than Markos, and I’m still a pup!”

“The only things Markos lifts are amphoras, hardly something to be proud of, even for a pup. Tomorrow, Alexios. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Have fun with your friends today, my boy.”

“I will. Thank you, Mater.”

Once she was alone, Myrrine sat down. Alexios was happy, she told herself. Alexios had friends, a good life, a safe life. He didn’t know he was Spartan. He was only ten years old. He was just a boy.

He was just a boy.

Myrrine stood and went outside, but it caught up to her, the disappointment, the comparisons.

Kassandra wouldn’t have done this. She loved to train, to hunt. She couldn’t wait to go to the agoge. She would have made a great soldier, and an even better leader. A true Spartan alpha, just like her father.

Kassandra. Her baby girl. She would have been 17 now.

* * *

It took years, as expected, but Odysseus’ palace stood tall on Ithaka once again. Word of it spread fast across the Greek world. From as far as Messenia and as close as Achaia, people came to the Kephallonia Islands to see the palace. They brought with them their curiosity and their drachmae.

Barnabas, a sailor, brought with him a story.

“I’ve heard that a god walks among us today,” the man declared, stealing the palace’s audience. “A young alpha who bears the eagle of her grandfather Zeus, fights with the wrath of her father Ares, and loves with the passion of her mother Aphrodite. Yes, it’s one of the twins. Deimos, and Phobos, as well, come to us as the Nemean Lion reborn. Why are they here? It’s a message from the gods. War is coming.”

That night, for the first time in years, Myrrine couldn’t sleep.

* * *

It turned out that Barnabas had been right about one thing: war was, indeed, coming. Perikles had been assassinated, killed right in front of his people. Kleon led Athens now. The treaty with Sparta would soon be broken.

Myrrine knew there was no escaping it. Kephallonia wasn’t invisible anymore, because of her. Athens would seek out Kephallonian lumber as it did before, only it would be to build ships for its navy, to deny Sparta the resource.

What Myrrine didn’t expect was to see Xenia again, and for Xenia to have brought Aspasia herself to Kephallonia.

“I’ll get the archon,” she told them. Xenia was looking at her strangely, had held her gaze in a way that made her uneasy. It was as though the alpha was searching for something.

“I’m already speaking to the archon.” Aspasia’s voice was cold, like her eyes. “Am I not, Myrrine?”

Myrrine stopped, closed the door and locked it. “What do you want?”

“Your help.”

“Your war doesn’t concern me.”

“But it does, Myrrine, because the alpha who killed Perikles is your daughter Kassandra.”

**Author's Note:**

> Even shorter than the first one, but hopefully still tells a full story. The next one will go back to Kassandra, and will likely be written in the same style as my other AC fic.


End file.
